Learning to Love
by LittleMinuteOwl
Summary: After being confronted with a horrifying event, Ron is forced to separate Hermione from the Wizarding world. What he doesn't understand is the full lengths of what he has done and heartache he's brought upon himself. So comes a time when he has to decide what he cares for more: Saving the Wizarding world from destruction or loving the cause of it.
1. A Heart's Desire

Ron stared at her across the fence, her hair no longer its frizzed self but settled in an elegant bun at the base of her neck, her eyes barely distinguishable. Running to her seemed the perfect option, gathering her in his arms and never letting go. It would be like in those Muggle movies she used to make him watch where the unrequited love never triumphed. But that's what they always would be, unrequited.

He watched as her lips curved into a smile, the handsome Muggle man across from her at the cafe smiling slightly at his own joke. Ron felt himself turn crimson and willed himself to look away. Ten more seconds, he told himself, nine, eight, seven – he didn't want to leave – six, five, four, three – he prepared himself, spreading his legs out in an action stance – two, one. He caught a last glance of her face and was whisked away as he Apparated.

Breathing heavily, he thudded to the ground, his knees collapsing beneath him. He could feel the tears at the backs of his eyes and pressed his palms down on his eyelids. _Stupid, _he thought silently, shaking himself. He could still see the etch of her smile indented into his brain, her tiny freckles perfect stars on her face.

He wished he didn't have to be like this, stolen glances to keep him sane and hopeful thoughts entering his mind. Seeing her inside the Muggle world made him realise that what he'd done to protect her was the right thing. It hit him like the Cruciatus curse, igniting every bone in his body until it was hard to breath and he felt like he would rather die than live on a planet like this.

When these moments happened he had to learn to breath, how to walk and talk like a normal human being. He sometimes tried a Patronus but it was so weak he couldn't even see his Jack Russell take form before it disappeared as though it were a wisp of smoke. She ruined him and he resented the part of himself that did what he did. He knew it was right but it he wished there were some way to make her disappear from his mind like he had from hers.

The Burrow's lights were off – a clear sign that everyone was sleeping. Ron crawled towards the door, his heart hammering inside his chest. _If someone found him. _When he reached the door a light switched on; he looked above him and saw Ginny, her face a shadow against the deep navy sky, her hair tide back. For a moment he thought she couldn't see him against the cover of the roof, but he saw a faint nod of her head that told him she'd seen him and that she wasn't impressed.

There was no other option but to proceed into the house like he had planned. Ron inched the door open, hearing the faint creak of the rusting metal. At first he saw nothing, but his eyes adjusted and he saw the form of Ginny, her arms crossed in an expression so like their mother's.

"Ron," she said exasperatedly, as though this had happened a thousand times.

"Ginny, I had to." Ron collapsed onto the couch. He felt as though he were nothing and that the couch would swallow him up. But it didn't.

"Ron, you know you can't see her. It was part of the deal."

"I know the deal!" Ron half-shouted, his voice hoarse. Ginny gave him a warning look. He felt his arms shaking violently and balled them into fists in his lap.

"Ron, she's happy. It's what we all wanted. She was being destroyed and you saved her. But you can't keep playing the hero. It's over." Ron nodded, his eyes bleary.

"Do you know what it's like, being me?" Ron enquired, not looking at Ginny.

"I can imagine –" Ginny began.

"No, you can't imagine Gin. It's like every single bone in my body is burning and there's nothing, not a speck of Healing that'll fix it. It's eating me away, silently, slowly and painfully. I don't think you can _imagine _what that feels like," he spat at her.

"She was my best friend Ron," Ginny began.

"Yeah but you didn't _love _her!" Ron bit at his tongue the moment he said the words and tasted blood inside his mouth. It was hard enough thinking he loved her but actually physically saying the words were like his kryptonite.

"Ron you can't –"

"I can't control how I feel Ginny!" Ron shouted, his breaths rushed and heavy. He got to his feet and stomped away, not looking back.

"Ron you can't control how you feel about Hermione," Ginny whispered, her voice barely audible, crackled by tears.

"Then why the hell can everyone else?" Ron heard lights upstairs turn on but he didn't pay attention. He forced his head forward, tears blearing his eyes. He briefly caught a glance of George looking shocked before he crawled up into his attic bedroom and wrapped his arms around his legs, rocking back and forth like a child, tear stains smeared all over his orange sheets.


	2. A Devil's Deal

Ron sat on the awkward, threadbare lounge, his feet dangling off the edges, a book hovering over his face, waiting for him to read. What was the point? He could try to read all he liked but he'd never love it like Hermione did. He could try to practice every spell to perfection but he could never cast them like Hermione could. Everywhere he went there was a piece of her with him – a painful shard that dug into his skin and carved a painful trail.

He willed the past year to come back, to go back to where they were and start anew. Maybe he could've changed it and made a better outcome. Maybe he shouldn't have resigned so easily.

It had been freezing the night the letter had come. Ron had been waiting by the fire anxiously for Hermione. She'd told him she had important news, a breakthrough even and Ron felt his legs shudder up and down in anticipation. It was curious that Hermione would wait on something so important and not tell him right there and then her plans and her endeavours. After the letter came, he understood.

The wind blew harshly and Ron was afraid the Burrow might cave in or Hermione would be crushed by a fallen tree on her way over. He prayed she would have a fraction of sense and Apparate as closely as possibly instead of her useful precautional twenty yards.

It hadn't shocked him in the slightest, therefore that instead of her presence she'd sent a letter. Pig shot through the window like a bullet and Ron rushed over to check on him to make sure none of his minuscule wings were broken. Ron hadn't been sure whether to let him out that night but the bird seemed to be fine and he came with news.

Hermione's writing was delicately written, strange for someone who was always rushing and straining to get something down. He gently opened the envelope and took out a letter, which had page's worth of words written down it in the same delicate writing.

Ron began to read the letter and as he read he felt his heart beat increase and threaten to explode, he felt his knees collapse beneath him, his hands shake in fury and his eyes fill rapidly with tears. _This can't be happening, _he thought. For the words inside the letter were destroying him.

The letter read:

_Dear Ron,_

_Love is something I can comprehend without much thought. Love is the reason the human race continues to grow. Love is the reason I care for humanity and what happens to it._

_But there are things in this world that are full of lies. There are things you say or do to protect the innocent, and hide the unbearable. I'm done hiding. I can't tell you what it is that's happened per say. But know this: I solemnly swear to tell you what I feel is necessary and know that there are parts of it even I do not understand._

_When I was a little girl a witch visited my home. She looked more like an old hag than anything else. She came to me and told me the one thing I wish I'd never heard. That, on the eve of my 21st birthday I would lose my control and I would be shunned to a life of evil. I was small and disbelieving. It was before I knew of the world of magic and my parents called the police but the hag disappeared._

_It is now two days before the eve of my 21st birthday, Ron and I feel different. I feel my love slipping between my fingertips like a fine thread. I promised you some time ago that whatever happened we would not purposefully lose each other. But I have to Ron. This isn't a matter of what I feel but what I know. I know what's happening to me and Ron, if I lose control, I may never be the same again._

_If losing control means losing who I am then I don't want to be here to understand what life will be like. I don't want to know a life where I don't understand who it is that you are to me. I'll lose you and could quite possibly kill you. I can't have that. I've tried and failed to stop using magic, to succumb to the standard of Muggle living but it's hard when you live as I do. I live in a world full of magic and full of wonder. I live in a world that, had it not been for the fact that magic existed, would not involve you._

_I promise you, Ron, that I'll be happy. I promise that when you see may face in your mind's eye it'll be at peace. I can't promise how you'll feel but please don't shadow yourself, because I love you. And maybe one day we can be reunited, in the end. Maybe it'll be in a week, a year or an eternity but we will know what it is to be near each other one day in the future and that is what will keep me alive in the place where I am meant to be so very dead._

_Don't despair, Ron, because love will find a way and everyday that you're alive I will be looking down upon you, that angel that guides you through your life. Make good choices, love someone else. Have a family and create a life but always remember that whatever you do, wherever you are is where I will be. _

_Remember that if I had continued life as it is, I would've destroyed it. You can't understand what it would mean if I hurt anyone. You can't understand why this is so hard for me to do and why you have no reason to believe what I am telling you. You have no reason to love me after what I'm about to do but please, find a way._

_My heart goes with you,_

_Yours forever,_

_Hermione_

He had thought that possibly all the breath had escaped him and he were dead. Because Hermione wasn't one to give up or fail. She would be the one to find a way. She always found a way.

There's no words to describe what it's like to hold a suicide not in your hand. It's like holding a time bomb and wishing for the years to reverse and give you time to solve to problem, to find a way. And in that moment Ron wished for forever. He wished for the silent breaths at night to be turned into kisses and for the world to stop for one moment so he could tell her he loved her.

There was a knock at the door.

Ron excitedly ran towards the door, sure Hermione would be there for his guidance. In some ways he felt neglected and forgotten. He was Hermione's confident and if she couldn't confide in him, who could she confide in?

Ron opened the door and what he saw made him stare.

In front of him was Mrs Granger, her hair a mess like her daughter's, her eyes kind and bright.

"Hello Mr Weasley," she said, as though she'd not just made it through the largest storm Britain had seen in fifty years.

"Mrs Granger!" Ron gasped as she let herself in, sitting down on the ugly patched lounge and dusting off her skirt. "Hermione, she –"

"I know of Hermione's predicament," Mrs Granger replied simply, looking somewhat bored.

"Then you must know what she's about to do!" Ron exclaimed, trying to make the woman in front of him see reason. Her daughter was about to _die _for their own safety without a proper explanation.

"Ron, of course I know." Ron felt the world slip beneath his feet. Was he the last person to hear of this? Did everyone just refrain from telling him to stop him? Hermione rarely corresponded with her mother any more. What had triggered her to do such a thing. "I've known since Hermione was born."

"You – what?" Everything was becoming more bizarre with every word Mrs Granger spoke.

"I'm sure she explained what had happened in the letter," Mrs Granger sighed, picking up the letter. Ron snatched it out of her hands.

"It's mine," he said defensively.

"Of course."

The room felt strange and uninhabited. It didn't feel like a room in a house anymore; it felt like he was at work, in the courtroom, enquiring about yet another infraction made by a suspected Dark wizard.

"Just please, Mrs Granger, tell me what has happened to her."

"It is not my place to say," she whispered, as though in deep thought.

"Your daughter is about to die and you're standing there telling me that you don't have a right to tell me why the hell she's doing it!" Ron shouted, red colouring his face, his stomach knotting angrily. He _needed _to know Hermione would be alright. It wasn't a want or a desire. He couldn't function without her.

"Ron you can't talk her out of it!" Mrs Granger urged, her eyes staring at him pleadingly. "She's turning into a monster."

"If that's what you think of your daughter then you are a disgrace to this world." Ron's eyes darkened and he glared at his soon to be mother in law. He would never know what it would be like to marry Hermione Granger.

"You have no idea –"

"No!" Ron's voice rose to a roar. "You have no idea what she means to me! You have no idea what life for me would mean without her. Now clearly you have no care in the world for her but I do! And if she's such a monster then you'll let me save her!"

"Ron, you won't be able to face the alternative," Mrs Granger said breathlessly. Tears formed in her eyes but she didn't wipe them away.

"What that she'll ruin the world?"

"That if you don't let her go and die, you have wipe her memory of you. You have to Obliviate her. You have to make her _forget _she ever loved you." Ron looked at her, dumbfounded.

"Why?" Ron pleaded, "Why do I have to let her go? Why can't I save her?"

"Because when a witch as powerful as the one that attacked Hermione casts a spell it's unbreakable. She must either die or be sent to the Muggle world where magic cannot hurt her."

"Magic is everywhere!" Ron exclaimed. "It's in the Muggle world, she can't hide from it."

"But she can hide from using it. If she doesn't believe in magic or witchcraft then she won't have to urge to use it for evil."

"She's not evil."

"But that witch was, Ron." Mrs Granger looked at Ron pityingly and Ron felt exposed. Never in his life did he think he would have to let go of Hermione like this. He thought they would grow old, have children.

"Why does it have to be me?"

"Because you love her, Ron." To Ron's surprise Mrs Granger smiled. "And you'll do anything to save her."

"What you're asking me to do is take away her identity."

"You must choose Ron. The hard way, or the easy way. But know this: if she has any recollection of the wizarding world in the slightest this will all be ruined. You choose her dead and remembering you, or alive and acting as though you never existed. You break this deal and there will be serious consequences."

With that, Mrs Granger left the house and Ron was left alone. The wind was shaking the house frighteningly and Pig was already up and zooming around his head. How was it that he knew that no one would understand him? Surely no one would say to let her go? Loss ruined a person, changed them and shaped them into a formidable creature. _The hard way, or the easy way. _There was no hard or easy way. There was only the hard way. It was the same for every decision a person made. Ron felt suddenly alone. He didn't want to live in a world without Hermione Granger but he had to. And if he had to choose he wanted to live on one where he could still - even if she didn't realised it - see her face.


End file.
